Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thorn, that bottle of ammonia looks like "cloudy ammonia" ....

Don't use it mate... it'll kill your fish....

(It's the bottle in the back of the pic) No cloudy in it but the bottle is opaque/translucent. It's this one (although I only bought a single), 10% ammonia hydroxide and water, and it passes the shake test.
http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1307957&cp=&sr=1&kw=ammonia&origkw=ammonia&pg=1&parentPage=search&searchId=40442873704

Glad you're on top of that one Thorn... wasn't sure if you were aware that cloudy ammonia was dangerous to fish...

Couldn't get the link to open when I tried, so couldn't check out the product or MSDS... but sounds OK...

And it's good to have the link there for others... as it has proven to be difficult to find sources of "pure" ammonia...

I hear ya, I originally started out with "clear ammonia" from evilmart and had to clean out the entire system and start over after I realized why my system was foaming. After the fact, I found the ingredient list mixed in with other wording on the label.

My nitrites are finally measuring zero again which means I now have nitrate bacteria in the first growbed. It was a disappointment to have to wait on that again since I dried up all the original. :I But now I can add minnows if I get a chance to get them tomorrow.

I also added a bunch of seeds yesterday to the 2nd growbed. I just stuck the rest of the seed packets in their own bottles with gravel and put two different packets of flower seeds in two bottles (one packet per bottle). It's probably too many seeds for such a small area but I'll let the seeds duke it out. I still have one empty bottle for whenever I get around to opening the grass seed. I still want to test a bottle without gravel and only seed.

I was able to get fish. Added 11 blacktail shiner minnows Saturday afternoon. I think there are 11 of them, they keep moving and it's difficult to get an accurate count.


I measured water levels Sunday night: Temp 82F, pH 7.0, ammonia 1.0, nitrite 1.0, nitrate 20, so I added 1 tablespoon of sea salt to help against the nitrite. I changed out 5% water this morning (all the dechlorinated I had at the time) to help against the nitrite. In hindsight I'm thinking I should have waited an extra week to build up more bacteria with ammonia beyond just equalizing what was already existing. Hopefully it'll catch up. I fed a few fish flakes sunday morning but only one or two took the hint. I fed a few more sunday night and more caught on pretty quick. Although I think I'll hold off on any more feeding until the levels smooth out again.

A couple of actions shots! You can see soot on the bottom, I'm assuming this is extra that wasn't initially washed off the gravel. It was there before the fish came along. I thought I washed it off really well. Can't take pics looking in from the side yet until I get the built up limestone off of the aquarium glass. We have a limestone aquifer and hard water as you can see the side glass on the right side of the pictures.

It's been over a week and the minnows are doing great. I've only been feeding them 1/2 tablespoon flakes per day, although I think they could easily go double or triple that. They eat it within 1 minute. Once the flake runs out, could I coax them into eating crushed dry dog food (cheaper)?

I'm hoping the next time I check water levels, they'll be in the zone. That's why I've been holding back on feed. Nitrite was at .25 couple days ago. I threw in some pot scrubbies for extra biofiltration, put one under each terracotta pot with the minigeysers and there are 3 others floating at the top. This should help counteract the slow water movement with more bacteria.

I am noticing that the minigeysers (running two right now) are not moving bottom sediment to the growbeds. Granted they are under upside down terra cotta pots but I doubt they would clean the whole bottom anyhow. Any ideas for easy cleanup on this since I'm not running a massive pump?

I also added a $40 APC 350VA/200watts UPS backup. It says 10 minute runtime at half load so with my two small air pumps using a combined 5 watts, I figure this should last 3+ hours during a power outage. (should be somewhere between 3-6 hours depending on how it's calculated). Does this sound right?

Will the minigeysers lift the solids? If so, just raise the bottom edge of the pots a couple mm.





3 hrs sounds good, probably. The 350VA is more than the 200watts because motors use more amperage than their wattage rating would seem to require due to fluctuating magnetic fields in the coils of wire.....never mind: complex stuff few people need to know. Anyway, 3 hrs will be close and you can get closer if you measure the exact draw....

wicked ideas thorn! I've been trying to work out a way of pumping without any electric pump and to be able to create one with only air pump is a very good achievement. I don't know why I haven't read this thread sooner but while I was reading it you were talking about pots inside the GB. I did that too! what I did was put the gravel at the bottom and then put the pots at the top with their own bit of gravel and squeeze them all in. THere was no need to put gravel in between...
Here's a picture from my system to demonstrate...


though my problem became that the plastic milk bottles got too brittle... so I ended up having to replace them. But it works you just have to make sure that there are lots of small holes right at the bottom so that bad bacteria can't build up at the bottom and you'll have plants that are happy as a lark in no time.

Nice pic jen. Out of the 5 bottles that have seeds, so far only the spinach bottle has sprouted. They all fill and drain the same, not sure what is holding back the others.

The minigeysers aren't strong enough to really create enough of a tractor beam to suck up the bottom goop. I really only have them in the pots to keep them upright. Just by themselves, they wanted to turn sideways since the air inside counteracts any weight they originally have. Plus, being inside the pots, they stay at a constant height so there is no risk of the tank going completely dry if worst comes to worst. That also means they are a little further from the bottom of the tank. At this point I do not intend to put any stronger air pumps on this system. So I gotta decide what I'm going to do about the bottom goop.

Would an apple snail take care of it and stay in the tank? (I've read that other species reproduce uncontrollably.)

A snail or whatever might be able to "use" the "solids", but would produce it's own. You need to have some way to lift them out, either by siphoning every day or week (depends on stocking, probably) or with a pump that lifts it. Are you sure you can't have the bottom edge of the airlift pump right above the bottom and introduce air through a T-fitting above it?

Lost one of the little guys today. The rest all seem okay. I had been noticing that one fish wasn't as active as the others, thought he was just more mellow. I also saw that the smaller pump that I had an airline in the tank with no airstone (it is old and not powerful enough to push through an airstone), that line had shifted and was pumping air into the air, so I relocated it so it's pushing out air through the water again.

They have been congregating along the bottom crevice of one of the terra cotta pots. I can't tell if they are trying to hide or spawn as this is how they normally spawn but I usually see at least half of them in the one spot.

I started feeding crushed up dry dog food for a little variety few days ago (ingredients pretty darn good). I added some duckweed too. Occasionally they will eat a few pieces of duckweed as they mistake it for the flake food but they haven't really taken to it yet. I also haven't noticed the duckweed multiplying in the fish tank or the side container I put some in with fish tank water. Does it take time to acclimate to new surroundings?

The last few readings have been 77F (I lowered the heater a little), pH 7.0, ammonia 0-0.1, nitrite 0.25-0.50, nitrate 0.20-0.50, I just changed out about 30% water to help the nitrate a little since the plants are not big enough to consume more. And I added another tablespoon of sea salt to combat the continuous nitrite levels.

On a good note, the plants have finally surpassed the sprout stage and are beginning to show signs of real leaves. I am showing some sprouts now in the second growbed with bottles.

The minigeyser isn't strong enough to create any type of water movement on the bottom so I siphoned out some waste with the water change. The fish eat the 1 teaspoon of food I put in within about 30 seconds but I don't want to risk them producing more waste knowing what the water levels are reading.

Sounds really good, although losing a fish is never a good sign. Here's hoping that it is only a random loss rather than a symptom. Good idea to change some of the water and restrict food, but don't over do it: nitrates can go very high without much ill effect and once you are keeping the other two pretty low I would go with more food. I had some new catfish that were showing signs of illness etc so I changed water more and more, added salt, withheld feed: within a week or two they looked far worse. So....I tossed them in with the tilapia and they recovered in a few days from the stress of extreme water changes and lack of food.

It is easy to extremes either direction if you tend that way....

Seeing as how the nitrites keep reading within 0-.5, I'm beginning to think that it is because my growbed ratio is low. And it very well could be. I have slow water movement but the plants are also still small and not using nitrates as fast as they are being produced. I have a 10 gallon tank (with actual water about 8.5 gallons), I have two shoebox growbeds, one filled half inch from top with gravel, and the other one only has gravel in 6 soda bottles (so 1/3 or 1/4 the gravel in that one), and 11 fish all about 2 inches long. I've been thinking about where to get cheap shelving so I could put more growbed space over the tank without putting more weight on the tank.

The fish still congregate at the crevice of the only remaining sideways terra cotta pot. I took the others out and put in caves of 12 soda bottles, although only one or two fish have actually swam INTO them and right back out. They do seem to like swimming through them where the holes are between the bottles and one has taken a liking to one through-hole on the bottom, maybe similar activity as to the terra cotta pot one? I think the standard soda bottle top opening is too small for their preference but I don't have a sander to make a bigger hole that is safe for them.

The only smallest fish seems distant to the others, they are all schooling but this one doesn't seem to care. He just sits an inch from the top facing outward as if to stare at me when I'm in view. We've started calling him "watcher".